How was your weekend? Mine was os-some!
No, really. I spent time with my husband. I got things done that needed to get done. I relaxed. I ate. I slept. I even got a few hours in the garden by the pool on Sunday arvo (first time this season).
Oh and I was tethered to my computer. Weekends in ETEC565A are often busier–most of the students are working full-time, after all. This week and last there’s a small group activity, so things were even busier (but wow are these folks impressing me with their work!). I also wanted to get folks set up with Moodle ASAP, since many were chomping at the (learning technology) bit, as it were.
The workflow was supposed to be:
Students complete a quiz that captures all the data John needs to create accounts
- John downloads data sets
- John scrubs data a wee bit
- John uploads CSV file and bulk creates all the accounts
- John each chips and dip
- John manually creates 83 course sites (one for each student)
Don’t worry I got chips–and bought more today. I earned ’em! Because this is what I ended up doing:
- Download data sets
- Discover the wrong quiz was loaded in all 4 sections
- Figure out a way to work with a data set missing 40% of the variables
- Create the accounts
- Create the sites
- Post the announcment
- Fix the incorrect password info in the announcement
- Get deluged with “I can’t log on” messages
- Each chips
- Fix accounts
- Get deluged with “I can’t log on” messages
- Fix accounts
- Eat the last of the chips
I think the worst is behind me though: the fix requests have slowed to a trickle. No sympathy required. 🙂
John:
Just wanted to say hi. Was actually looking for a way to see the grading/evaluation scheme for ETEC 565 – I have a job interview with Vancouver Island University for a course called, EDTECH 431 – instructional design. Nervous but excited and doing some reflecting/preparing in terms of assessment and evaluation – have a syllabus from Fall 2010 and it eerily looks familiar. Just wanted to say (again) that I got more out of your course than many of the others put together and that much of what I learned will be passed on indirectly/directly to VIU student teachers (should I not stove the interview and get offered the job).
As an aside, I have done much more work with my Moodle site for History 12 and you probably know this but…putting/creating quizzes for Moodle is painful, laborious, and defeats the purpose of having it already in an electronic format. I was introduced to Respondus 4.0 which will convert MSWord files (which many teachers have used for years) very accurately if you have done some minor formatting to the Word file before using Respondus. There is a free 30 day trial and the cost is not great to buy a single license compared to the time needed to copy/past from MSWord to Moodle.
Anyways, it appears life is good and I am happy to say that unlike the majority of my colleagues (Leadership Masters), I am pursuing work outside of school (did some writing /consulting as well) and seem to be getting somewhere.
Cheers,
Greg Lewis
Wow … that sounds familiar … you know someone once told me that weekends were for fun and relaxation – who knew?
Ain’t technology grand?
Feeling your pain
gillian
Thanks Gillian!